Neal Israel

Ted: [00:00:00] Here he is.

Phil: Good!

Neal Israel: [00:00:03] Good. o many things to think about. Okay, I'm going to push the red button. That's it.

Neal Israel: [00:00:07] Testing one, two, three. This is a test. Perfect. Oh, hold it over my headset. This is really, really stupid. [00:00:16] Okay. I love it. Everything about it is stupid. That's what I like about it. Holy shit.

A.E. Guy: [00:00:25] Welcome to Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show with your hosts. Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt. Phil and Ted's guest today is Neil Israel. Comedy writer, director and creator of the movie classics. Tunnelvision, Americathon and The Police Academy. And now yours sexy boomer hosts, Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt.

Ted: [00:00:49] Welcome to Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show. I’m Ted Bonnitt.

Phil: [00:00:52] And I'm still Phil Proctor. And we have a very special and personal guest with us today. Neil Israel, we go back a long ways together, right? Which we'll get into during our conversation, but I'm also very interested in hearing what Neil's up to now, because he is definitely one of the busiest people in the business.

Neal Israel: [00:01:12] How do you know? You're not here? You don't see what I'm doing.

Phil: [00:01:16] You're right.

Ted: [00:01:17] You've done a lot of things. Probably people would know most would be the police Academy series of movies of which there were seven.

Neal Israel: Yeah.

Ted: It's remarkable.

Neal Israel: Yeah.

Ted: This was something that you did with Pat Proft created it.

Neal Israel: And, um, we, after we did the first one. We were doing other things and they wanted us to start doing the sequels and we felt like, uh, I don't know, you've done it already. Why, why are we gonna do another one of these? So it was nice because we kept getting checks and we didn't have to do anything.

Phil: Isn't that the best? That's the greatest, that's my favorite thing.

Neal Israel: [00:01:57] I like, I like when they hire you to do something and they decide not to make it and they pay you anyway. Yeah, they hope you to direct movies where they just didn't go and they had to pay me, like I directed the movie,

Phil: [00:02:07] they called it, pay or play.

Neal Israel: I love [00:02:09] that.

Ted: [00:02:10] I went to IMD B and I just did a rough calculation. And those movies made well, North of $200 million in box office.

Neal Israel: [00:02:20] And you know, of course in today's dollars. What is that now? Is that a, is that 800 million or a billion? I don't even know what that is now. Wow. But, uh, the first police Academy, I think.

I think the budget I'm going to say it was under 4 million. Right. And so even in today's dollars, that's not a lot of money. Right. How much would it be? 20. Yeah. And the thing made 150, 160. I don't know. Something like that. Millions. Wonderful. That's great. They couldn't, they couldn't hide. The profits, they had to actually pay us.

Phil: [00:02:58] There you go.

Neal Israel: [00:02:59] How are we going to hide this?

Phil: [00:03:00] Oh,

Ted: [00:03:01] Tunnel vision predated even Americathon.

Neal Israel: [00:03:05] Yeah, I was working at CBS. I was in charge of the promo department and I would always, you know, we would constantly turning out these trailers for these, uh, Shows. And I would always, sometimes I would, uh, make up fake narration to go with it.

You know what I mean? Or I just do it just for my own amusement and for the other people there. And I said, well, this, this, why don't we do this as a movie? Or just make fun of CBS just screwing around. And we were going to do it in those days. The improv in Hollywood, before it was the improv, it was called the Pitchell players.

It was, uh, I don't know if you guys remember this, but sure. It was an improv group that were in there. And I went in and talked to the guy who was running it, a guy named Joe Roth. He was running this little place and I said, look, I want to set up monitors in the inside the theater and people will come in.

It's like, they're watching television, but it's our own crazy network of stuff. And he said, Oh, that sounds good. Let's do that. I said, okay. And you can help me produce it. He goes, Oh, good. I've always wanted to produce boy. And so we started to make this while I was at CBS, all kinds of people wanted to be involved, even though we have practically no money.

In fact, Phil Procter was the president of tunnel vision, our fake network

Phil: [00:04:26] And not handsomely paid for it.

Neal Israel: [00:04:30] Nobody was handsomely paid and there was some resentment, but SAG did allow us to get away with this. I don't know how

Ted: [00:04:36] you can see tunnel vision on YouTube.

Neal Israel: [00:04:37] Oh, you can. Okay. I didn't know.

Ted: [00:04:41] Yes. I watched it the other night.

Phil’s at the top of the picture.

Neal Israel: Right. He gets killed. Handsome.

Ted: What a handsome devil.

Neal Israel: He was, he was a handsome devil.

Phil: [00:04:51] Yeah. I got killed right away, but I get, I get to live on in flashbacks.

Ted: You get killed at the end of the movie.

Neal Israel: [00:04:56]. Oh, is that what it is? Yeah, the end of the movie, right.

Phil: [00:04:59] That's right. Yeah. At the end of the movie, uh, uh, I remember when I was doing my first soap opera edge of night, I was playing a juvenile delinquent named Julian Kurtz and all the, all the boys had female names. All the girls cookie Pollock was my girlfriend. They had male names and, uh, w after I'd been on the air for a couple months, the writer came to me and said, Hey, we got a storyline for you. I said, great. Since you're really getting murdered.

Neal Israel: [00:05:22] you're out.

Phil:[00:05:23] right, right. But he said, but don't worry. You'll come back in the courtroom.

Clip: [00:05:29] Nice. Thanks. Nice for nothing.

Phil: [00:05:31] So, so that was, you know, I'm used to getting murdered in movies. Yeah. It's it's okay. As long as I still get the residuals.

Neal Israel: [00:05:38] you know, I acted in a horror film called, uh, “Island of the Alive.”

This, this wonderful director, Larry Cohen did this movie. He was a horror master. And the reason I did it was because I got to go to Hawaii. That's where we shot it. Oh. And the way I got killed was I was in this lagoon and this giant baby, you see there, there were these babies who were born as monsters.

This was the third sequel was, um, Karen Black and Michael Moriarty, they were the parents of these babies. So they had to take these babies to this tropical Island because they were a danger to the populace. And I was a scientist who went over there to see how they were progressing. Well, how they progressing was they grew, but they were still babies.

So they had these baby outfits that these midgets wore. I've real midgets. Oh my Lord. In baby outfit. Yeah. So they put this guy who was a midget weightlifter. He was a strong little midget, put him in the water. So he was supposed to come up out of the water and grab me from behind and drag me under. So, okay. “Action!” He comes up behind me. I feel him behind me. And he grabs me. And now I notice as he's pulling me under he's struggling. Well, what happened was the water filled up the baby suit? And he was drowning. So I'm trying to save this guy who weighs now about 500 pounds and he's fighting me. He's fighting me cause he's, you know, he's, he's excited.

He doesn't want mean all these people jump in the crew jumps in, we saved the guy at everything, but that was, that was my big death scene in that thing.

Phil: [00:07:28] You saved the mighty midget.

Neal Israel: Horrible.

Phil: Now that that's an unusual story, you know, during, during this conversation for you folks out there, uh, who may know some of these, uh, seen some of these wonderful movies when you hear all of the things that Neil and Pat did together, but, uh, the people that we're talking about, you know, W way back when have gone on to amazing careers, Joe Roth, right?

Neal Israel: [00:07:52] Yeah. We can talk about him. He, he, he became the head of Disney, became the head of Fox, became the head of his own studio from, from that little club on Melrose from that one.

Phil: [00:08:03] From the beginnings of the pixel players, he improvised a great life for himself.

Neal Israel: [00:08:07] Yeah, he sure did. He really, he was a natural, I mean, he really was.

He was very good at it. Yeah.

Phil: [00:08:14] Karen Black, who you were in that movie with? She was a girlfriend of mine in New York.

Neal Israel: Oh, for Pete’s sake..

Phil: [00:08:20] I introduced her to Henry Jaglom him at a Downey's one night and I had to just leave them there. Cause you know, they're those minds engaged. Next thing I knew, uh, he was encouraging her to come out to Hollywood and bingo, you know, and her career took off. So we were friends right up to her sad demise.

Ted: [00:08:40] Both Americathon and Tunnelvision were unique films in terms of their genre, their style and their format, which were obviously unique to the times, too. What do you think accounted for you getting away with doing these movies?

Neal Israel: [00:08:56] Well, first of all, our generation, cause this is the boomer show.

Uh, we at a certain point had developed a lot of our own styles, artistically, I think. And you know, you had the F. The older generation were doing Carol Burnett. Uh, your show of shows, laughing that kind of humor, which was not, you know, but in, over in England where the goon show and Python and all those things were percolating, there was a new, I was very aware that there was a new humor.

Coming out here. And, and I had a, uh, I did a play off Broadway in New York that Michael Douglass was in upstairs in that theater was another theater and they had channel four, which was the groove tube. So I actually saw that and I just put it in my head and I went, this is another example of this kind of humor.

One of these days, I've got to do that. Wow. And so now I found myself at CBS. Doing the promos for all the family and, um, Carol Burnett and all those shows, Sonny and Cher. You know, I knew all these people, Tony Orlando and Dawn. And so, uh, they worked to me very old fashioned in a way. Not that I didn't like them, they were old fat, but they were ripe for satire in my mind. Yeah. All the commercials where everything was really.

Ted: [00:10:25] Is it fair to say that “Laugh In” was sort of a transitional format because that was sort of scatological.

Neal Israel: [00:10:33] Yeah. I think, I think it was, I think it was, you know, um, the idea that you could have Richard Nixon making fun of himself, uh, you couldn't imagine that happening on the Jackie Gleason show or on Andy Williams show or, you know what I mean?

There is a through line through certain television shows. I'd start with Ernie Kovacs. Oh yeah. Then I would go and then I would go, uh, Steve Allen, because these guys had a whole different kind of mentality, you know, very loose

Phil: [00:11:08] loosey goosey.

Neal Israel: [00:11:08] And then what happened to the Smothers Brothers, which I think the anticipation was a much straighter show.

Yeah, they did not back down at all. They were so angry about what was going on out there. Uh, and. Incorporated the drug culture on CBS, which was the straight, I mean, the guys at CBS, most of them still wore white shirts and ties. Nobody even had a Stripe on their shirt. Color. It was white man. And they paid for it dearly because finally Nixon called up, um, Paley and said, he's he's, you can't do this.

You can't do that. That they, they, they were attacking everything. So there was something afoot when you, you know, when you kill our heroes. Yeah. And you add drugs to the mix that expanded our minds. Then you know, you couldn't be in stasis anymore. Then, something had to happen? And it did.

Phil: [00:12:03] it was a tipping point for sure,

Ted: [00:12:06] Americathon and Tunnelvision, and Firesign Theatre thrived in the late sixties and seventies. Right. But then as the Reagan revolution, it took foot in 1980. That really was the beginning of the end of that era and things narrowed.

Neal Israel: [00:12:23] Yes. Well, what was interesting about both of those movies,Americathon and Tunnelvision thought they took place in some future time?

Yes, because I was very fascinated with the idea that if our generation kept going, what would that do to media? W how would that change things? Tunnelvision and Americathon, both predicted things that actually happened, even though I didn't call Tunnelvision streaming or cable. That's essentially what it was because I was talking about narrow casting that you could actually do shows that would attract a huge audience and they didn't necessarily have to be mainstream.

Clip: [00:13:10] Television of the future.

And here's a sneak preview of the new shows. You'll see our tunnel vision, 1985 knocked up Ben on the run. The pregnant man

Neal Israel: [00:13:21] premise was people will watch anything. That takes them out of their heads. Okay.

Clip: [00:13:35] this is tunnel vision.

Neal Israel: We had, um, a sitcom with the Manson family. Silicon silly, whatever that,

Clip: Family entertainment with those cut-up beauties on Charlie's girls.

Neal Israel: [00:13:52] the Manson trial was going on. Then when we made it. So the, the idea that people would in some future for watch something like that.

Phil: [00:14:01] It’s cutting edge. Right, right. Oh yeah. And I, I know my character that you wrote the, uh, Christian Broder who had created the network. I was kind of the mouthpiece for that, that projection,

Neal Israel: [00:14:15] right.

That's right. We just put the stuff on. It's not my fault. It was your, was your attitude. It was racist. It was sexist. Yeah, it was all of that.

Ted: [00:14:24]Your character, Phil was almost like a future Rupert Murdoch.

Neal Israel: [00:14:28] The similarity between his character, Christian Broder and Murdoch is, um, they would, they realized by taking an outrageous position, people would watch.

Whether you believe in it or not, it didn't matter. You'd get eyes.

Clip: [00:14:45] Catch the scintillating, heartwarming story the Ramona and Sonia it's rib, tickling humor,

Neal Israel: [00:14:51] Give them what they want. This is what they want.

Phil: Everybody was in that movie.

Neal Israel: Second City was in town then at, uh, in Pasadena. So I was able to cast some second city people, uh, John Candy. He came from second city. I mean, it was unbelievable who was there? Chevy chase was in it too. And Chevy was there now Chevy. I knew because I had an improv group in New York. So I knew Chevy from New York. Oh Chevy. And Pat Proft were writing for the Smothers brothers. They were a writing team and Pat also was in it.

That's how I met Pat. So. They said, Oh, Chevy's in it. Chevy's around. He said you have something for Chevy. I said, sure, bring Chevy over. And this is before Saturday night live, probably what? Eight or nine months before Saturday night live, went on the air and I'd seen Chevy in New York and a similar thing called it was a place called channel one, which became groove tube.

And Chevy was in that. So he came in and I said, just use your real name. I love your name and hi, I'm Chevy chase.

Phil: Oh, no kidding.

Clip: [00:15:55] I'm Chevy Chase. Chevrolet.

Neal Israel: [00:15:58] And then just as the movie was coming out, Saturday night live went on the air, Lorraine. Uh, Newman who you guys had on your show. She was also in it, uh, Al Franken and Tom Davis, who also went to let the Saturday night live.

So there was a lot of people in town then between that and the committee, all these great improv groups that were around

Ted: [00:16:23] you carried that idea into Americathon. They were trying to raise $400 billion. Right?

Neal Israel: [00:16:29] Who did they owe the money to? That's the, that's the interesting thing. American Indian, native Americans had loaned all this money.

He'd become very wealthy because he owned Nike, which was the, what was it? The native Indian. I forgot what it stood for, but it was knitting. It was a knitting enterprise. What had happened is that, you know, sports clothing had become so huge now, right? Like now everyone was in tracks. The whole, the whole movie, everyone is in a version of a track.

Phil: [00:16:58] Americathin is a motion picture that you can also see on YouTube that is remarkably. Uh, prescient and very apt for our time, because it's really about the bankruptcy of America and how you know, how, how to save it. And, uh, it started with a thing called Gothamthon that Peter and I did as part of our touring act.

And Neil saw us. It was in Boston wasn't it Neil?

Neal Israel: [00:17:21] Yeah, it was in Boston. Yeah. Yeah. I was promoting tunnel vision. I was in town

Phil: [00:17:27] I’ll be darned. And he said, this is a good idea for a movie I'd like to make this movie with you.

Neal Israel: That's right.

Ted: [00:17:32] The, I think that struck me was the establishing shot of downtown Los Angeles is the future scape.

Neal Israel: I love dshooting that

Ted: you could see how thick the air was back then.

Phil: [00:17:41] It was terrible. Smog of there day.

Clip:[00:17:43] freeways are jam. Now cars have disappeared from the scene.

Neal Israel: [00:17:46], that opening number. First of all, we had the beach boys who weren't really talking to each other at the time, is broken up. We've got them. I don't know how to record a new song for this thing.

Even though they weren't in the same space, each one did their own thing in a different place mixed together. Right. It was mixed together. But then the, we took over a section of freeway. Because nobody had cars anymore. They were on bikes, they were on running. They were at skateboards or they were on roller skates.

And that was like, for me, one of the great moments of my life, watching that scene unfold and watching, you know, a hundred people running along the freeway with no cars. And one of the extra was one of the extras is my uncle Mersch who came out from New York. I have whatever the tracksuit and uncle Mersh said, “I can't believe all these people for you yet. Schmuck. How did you get all these people here? “

Ted: [00:18:52] But that was another futuristic look because that, that looked like CicLAvia. You know, where we closed down the streets in Los Angeles for bicyclers.

Phil: [00:19:00] Now I want you to tell a story that really blew me away. And it's in the book, Americanthoin, which is Peter Bergman and my kind of reminiscence of our life on the road and how that piece evolved. How was it that you got the money to make Americathon, you know, this story?

Neal Israel: [00:19:19] Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, just, just as a prelude to it. So, you know, I wrote the movie for Fox and they, I remember having a meeting at Fox and they went, we don't know what this is. We don't want to do it. Yeah. And I said, I'm telling you I could picture lines around the block and the I'm not going to mention who the executives were.

He was, I see no one coming in and that was it. So now I had a dead script, you know, and I was, um, dating this, this girl. And, um, she said, uh, so what's happening with your movie? I said, well, Fox doesn't want to make it. I don't know what I'm going to do. She said, well, I know a guy who actually runs a studio.

I said, you do. She said, yeah. Yeah, he, yeah. I, why did I give him a script? I said, be my guest. All of a sudden, I get a phone call from this studio head who says, I've read the script. I love it. I think I want to make it. Why don't you come in? Oh, I went, this is unbelievable. And I say to this girl, thank you so much.

This is wonderful. I don't know how you did this. I go in there and he says, yes, let's do it. I love this. This is fantastic. And this man. Had run paramount. He had greenlit The Godfather and all this stuff. And I thought, this is, this is incredible. And as the meeting is breaking, he asked me, so how do you know her?

This girl whose name shall be nameless? I said, well, We're dating. He said, Oh really? He said, well, are you, are you sleeping with? I said, well, yeah. He said, well, so am I? I said, what? So apparently she just passed the script in bed from my bed to his bed. And we had a very hearty laugh at that one. And, uh,

Phil: [00:21:17] That was Hollywood the way it used to be.

Neal Israel: Uh, you think?

Phil: [00:21:20] think just play the game, no shame. You know,

Neal Israel: [00:21:23] that's true. No, she listened. She did a wonderful thing for both of us.

Phil: [00:21:27] as a great story. I love this story.

Ted: [00:21:30] So this is how it became funded and it went from there. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And the cast was amazing. Incredible. How did you attract George Carlin and Harvey Corman?

Phil: [00:21:42] Peter Marshall, Jay Leno, Tommy Lasorda, Howard Hassemann. Yep. I think it was because people knew that these movies were going to be fun. No, they were going to be fun. And they were making fun of the rigorous society that we were living at at the time. Right. The strict society.

Neal Israel: [00:22:03] Elvis Costello was in it, which just is amazing. It's amazing.

Phil: 00:22:10] John Ritter was John Ritter. John Ritter was the President of the United States.

Clip:: [00:22:16] I'm not a country, I'm not an office. I'm not a decorative seal. I'm a person. I'm a man. I'm a man who wants to make love to you.

Neal Israel: [00:22:27]Harvey Korman was amazing

Clip: [00:22:30] Folks do something I'm dying. Call and make a pledge.

Phil: Harvey Corman. Amazing. What you're talking about also reminded me that Peter and I did an album called, uh, TV or not TV, which we, you know, which also, uh, predicted the concept of having hundreds of channels. Right. W so that people could cherry pick what it was. They wanted to see, you know, it just, we, we were..Our, our feet were in the future in those days, one, you know, and every, everybody who had a really, uh, intelligent sense of humor was projecting these, these comic ideas into the future, because like anything goes

Neal Israel: [00:23:15] right, because you couldn't have the events of the sixties and the media, uh, you couldn't do the Beverly Hillbillies. Yeah. And have that go into the 70s, it just couldn't that's right. Things were changing. You couldn't do real McCoys and all those other things that were on those things just didn't make any sense. In fact, it was the end of variety shows. Really those, those shows went away. Yeah. You

Phil: [00:23:39] Which is the downside of it, frankly,

Neal Israel: [00:23:43] I mean, Saturday night live, which. Kept that kind of humor, skit humor, but it also had it, it also had a down periods. Especially in the eighties, it sort of lost its way. The

Ted: [00:23:57] seventies also, not only did it have Saturday night live breakout, but we had Mary Hartman. We had America Tonight, Fernwood Tonight. They were just unique to the times

Phil: [00:24:07] They were parodies of, you know, the form, the form, the old forms.

Ted: [00:24:11] Yeah. That's because we all grew up on Mad Magazine.

Neal Israel: [00:24:14] That's right. And, and one of the thrills, which is probably not in my resume is, uh, I got hired to write a movie for mad magazine and Pat and I, and we were, we were writing, we wrote it with, um, two of the great.

Mad magazine writers, a guy named Arnie Cogan and Larry Siegel. And these, these were the guys who wrote the movie satires in mad magazine. And, um, they flew us to New York to meet with William Gaines, who was the founder of mad magazine. Right. And, you know, yes, like everybody of my generation was in comedy that I grew up.

I grew up on, wait a minute, I'll show you something. Hold on a second. It was of the people in the podcast can enjoy this, but I'll describe it. That's me and Pat in mad magazine. Oh wow. Uh, so I've got, I've got a surprise for you and sure enough. It's Dick Martin from laughing. Yeah. It's uh, okay.

And we're accepting an award accepting. The raunchy are the two creators of cop Academy, Neil Izzy and Pat prop. Then my, my bubble says. As creators of cop Academy and bachelor orgy, we've made millions since you love coughing up five bucks to see junk, we will continue to crank out the sleaze watch for our new films, nuclear, winter nymphos and Hot Tub Girls go home for Passover. This is the only thing I have hanging in my office because this is the only thing that really matters to me.

Ted: [00:25:58] You're listening to Phil and Ted sexy boomer show with our special guest Neil Israel.

Phil: [00:26:03] And talk about a blast from the past. This is it. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. This

Patrick Weathers: [00:26:09] is Johnny Cash for barbecue anonymous. Barbecue was once considered the ultimate pleasure to the palette, the Supreme King of foods. Now we must realize that old King Q is a killer. Yes, heart disease and barbecue walk hand in hand key. Post-op watch on this heart of mine.

I turn my nose up to a plate of swine, whether it's ribs slash chopped or fried pork. Right. If it's barbecue, I must decline nevus barbecue. I must decline.

A.E. Guy: [00:27:01] You’re listening to Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show with Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt. To hear all the sexy boomer shows go to SexyBoomerShow.com. Share the link with all your sexy friends. And find out how to get your very own sexy boomer bumper sticker@sexybloomershow.com back to Phil and Ted and their special guests, comedy writer and movie director, Neal Israel.

Ted: [00:27:26] And now we're back our special guest Neal Israel, who has done movies, television direct, right. Police Academy Americathin tunnel vision, and much, much more.

Phil: [00:27:38] Yeah, he's a creative genius. All right. Just ask him,

Ted: [00:27:41] We should talk about a little bit about Pat Proft because he's been mentioned a lot here at the great Pat prof.

He was invited to be on the show with us today, but these remote interviews during the pandemic, that's why we call our series Bunker to Bunker. We just couldn't get connected to his bunker and in Minnesota. So hopefully someday soon,

Neal Israel: [00:27:59] We're still working together.

Phil: How many years, Neil, in a long time we've been writing together?

Neal Israel: I would say since ’79. Wow. I think the first thing we wrote together was a musical for Ringo Starr on NBC. We did a book musical of perfect is that, Oh my God, that's something you can see on YouTube. That's worth seeing, because listen to this cast, John Ritter played his manager. His girlfriend was Carrie Fisher.

His father was art Carney. Wow. Oh, and Vincent Price was his shrink. Dr. Nancy, Dr. Nancy and George Harrison's

Phil:[00:28:34] in it. What was it called? Was it the Ringo Starr show or Ringo Starr special?

Neal Israel: It was basically, we took the Prince and the popper were Ringo, played Ringo, the famous beetle. And then he was AGA rats, which is Ringo, Starr backwards, who sold maps to the stars homes.Oh wow. And they look exactly alike. Ringo sees this guy. He hates being, uh, an ex beetle and a musician. He never has any time to be normal. So they switched places. And the AGA rats, of course, doesn't really know how to play. The drums can sing great ideas and art Carney is horrible. He's like, uh, you know, he's like a character out of Dickens.He's terrible. And Ringo keeps saying, you don't understand. I'm not really. I'm I'm Ringo Starr, know our guard. He's going. Yeah. Right. Show us shut up.

Phil: [00:29:23] Well, you know, I, I was always a little disappointed that, uh, you chose a Pat Proft with a PP when you were working with Phil Proctor with a PP.

Neal Israel: [00:29:35] First of all, Pat had more hair and since I was losing my hair, I really didn't want to be around another bald guy.

Phil: [00:29:45] Bergman. Aren't you talking about Bergman?

Neal Israel: [00:29:47] Yeah, no, that guy, but it wasn't about, you.

Phil: [00:29:53] One of the regrets life, honestly, Neil is that again, to catch people up to the, this incredible history that we've shared, uh, Peter and I were working with Neil to develop the first stages of the American Don screenplay and at a certain point, uh, Peter and Neil.

Really got into a conflict over a comic conflict of some sort, which is very, very common in when you're working comedy. You know, and Neil, I remember called me up and said, Phil, I can't work with Peter anymore. It's just too, it's just too upsetting. Uh, but, but I'd like you to continue on. And I said, well, I can't do that because I'm loyal to Proctor and Bergman.

I still regret that.

Neal Israel: [00:30:34] Well, what would have happened? Had you done that? What would have happened? What would have happened to your relationship?

Phil: [00:30:40] Well, really what would have happened? This is true many times in my career. Since we're boomers talking here, we have a history, we all have a history, many times in my career, I was offered opportunities that could have taken me on an entirely different path.

I remember you. And was it Michael Gross cough once offered to manage my career and I was too stupid to understand what that would mean.

Neal Israel:[00:31:04] Did you turn us down?

Phil: [00:31:06] It was the same thing. I thought I can't leave the Firesign theater. I was kind of trapped in that success, you know?

Neal Israel: [00:31:13] Yeah. But you're also a loyal person. It's not a bad quality. It's not necessarily a quality that's going to make you rich, but it's. Well, that's right. You're going to get into heaven.

Phil: [00:31:26] Maybe if I was smart enough to know what management really meant, or I would have embraced that because you know, the show business, when it, when a career works, it means that you have a collaboration with people and there's a given a take and people kind of, you know, understand what it is you need and what you want.

Neal Israel: That's the wisdom that you've acquired with a true. When we're, when we're starting and especially, you know, your struggle, you struggle. And all of a sudden you're hot. Uh, you don't have that wisdom. Uh, Seth Rogan said something interesting recently in an interview, he said, um, being famous is a talent in itself. A lot of people can handle it. Very smart. And I think that's very true. Yeah. So when you finally get that level of success, uh, if you are, if you don't ha if your feet aren't on the ground, you make a lot of mistakes. You do a lot of things that you shouldn't do. Uh, and you're headstrong and your ego takes over your head is in the clouds

Phil: [00:32:27] and your feet are not on the ground.

Neal Israel: [00:32:30] Feet up your ass. But yes, even blowing up with, with, uh, Bergman was part of my ego trip. Sure. Know what I mean? Whereas. Uh, a few years before. I mean, he was like an idol of mine, so it's, it's a weird right when I was riding with Steve Martin. I mean, I'd be sitting there in the room and thinking, how the hell am I writing with Steve Martin? He's so brilliant. And when I would make him laugh, I would say, Oh, wow. I made him like, this is like the greatest thing in the world, but it's always the insecurity underneath the big ego. Right. And with age. Um, the ego kind of goes away. And so does the insecurity and you are who you are and it's fine.

That's the nicest part about it? You know what I mean? You you're actually doing the work and not second guessing yourself. You're doing the work as you love the work. The editor has gone away. How is this going to go over? Is anybody going to get this? I'm going to get killed for the critical all gone.

And that's a really, that's why you can, even though people say, well, you can't really do good work when you get older. I don't, I don't know.

Phil: [00:33:43] Oh no. I know that's really a terrible misconception.

Neal Israel: [00:33:45] Right? I heard Stephen Sondheim said that recently. He said, well, you know, I'm working on something, but he says most people's later careers aren't any good. And I was like, Steven, hello, are you kidding me? Don't say that.

Phil: [00:33:58] And speaking to that, you're working on a musical right now about James Brown, right?

Neal Israel: [00:34:03] Yeah. Um, I had met this man right after James Brown died, who worked with James Brown from the time he was 11 until Brown died. So about 43, 44 years.

He became his, everything. I mean, he started holding the coat, the guy holding the coat and he was holding the coat when he was 11. And he, you know, Brown gave him 40 bucks, which he'd never seen money like this he's a street kid. Wow. But eventually, I mean, he started doing his hair, he was doing his makeup.

He was doing his wardrobe. He was doing his books. He was helping run his company. And then, you know, when he'd finally had enough, um, he made it decided to do his own singing thing and made a demo. And then Brown. When he was going to leave browse and wait a minute, I I'm going to, I'm going to record you and I'm going to put you on my label.

Wow. So he can never get away from, you know, he could never get away from the sky. And, um, he basically, after Brown passed away and he expected Brown, Brown kept saying, I'm going to leave you a lot of money. And he didn't, he didn't, in fact Brown didn't leave anybody any money except the foundation. He didn't leave him the coat.

He didn't get the coat. He got actually what he said he got, and I'm not kidding. He got a half of a bottle of let's just say ed pills.

Phil: Pecker pills.

Ted: Viagra.

Neal Israel: [00:35:20] Viagra, Yeah. He got a half bottle of Viagra and I mean, he didn't get anything from the guy, but he did get the band. He he's now, um, it's, it's RJ in the James and the original James Brown band.

So they do play gigs together. Wow. That's okay. So this musical is it's really, from his point of view, it's about his, you know, it's sort of like when you're naive about. Somebody, what we were just talking about about, you know, you admire somebody from afar and you're idolize limit, but then when you get to know them and you see the person yeah.

That opinion changes. And sometimes, um, they take advantage of you. And then finally you've had enough and that's basically the arc of this whole show and this guy's life. So he's still living on his son's couch, by the way. He's, he's still struggling. He's hoping physical. We'll open.

Ted: [00:36:11] Oh wow. How many years was he with him?

Clip: [00:36:11] 43.

Neal Israel: [00:36:13] Yeah, forty-three years. It was his best. I mean, he really, he was his best friend. He really was. It's an amazing story. Wow. When Brown had his, he got married a fourth time and his new wife said, well, we're going to have a baby Brown turned to RJ and said, How is this possible? I had a vasectomy, but I don't want to tell her.

So he told her RJ, I want you to go to the delivery room. If that baby comes out white, because the woman was white. You just let me know. It's not that we're just going to go with it. You know?

Phil: [00:36:47] Now you're also writing an autobiography. You've had a very, very elongated career. Uh, and yet within the same kind of entertainment context, which I think is wonderful. It's like, you've been re-inventing.

Neal Israel: [00:37:01] Yeah. I think it's just, you follow your interests, you know, and you don't get stuck because I've never wanted to repeat myself, which sometimes to my detriment, I guess, because you get pigeonholed very quickly. Yup. You know, if you do a certain, like I was doing physical comedy and, um, no one could imagine that I could actually write a cat real character or a real person, and that, and you have to breath.

So you're constantly trying to break through barriers because people just want you to do what you do. And if you keep doing what you do, the same thing over and over, you are going to eventually, they're not going to want you to do it anymore. Cause you're old hat, you know, sometimes I've just walked away from things.

I didn't want to do it again. I didn't want to do it anymore. Yeah, I understand.

Phil: [00:37:45] I've done that too.

Neal Israel: [00:37:46]So, that's, that's, that's what I've been doing. I guess a lot of that I'm pushing myself to a new challenge to see if I could do it. I don't know if I can,

Phil: [00:37:52] During this COVID time. Are you, I still been doing some directing gigs or

Neal Israel: [00:37:57] about, um, five or six years ago. I was working for Disney and, uh, I moved to Santa Barbara and I, I just, I was spending more of my time in LA during the week in a hotel. And instead of enjoying my house and my children and my wife and I went, I can't take this anymore. So I just stopped, just stopped. I directed one more movie. Pat called me.

He said, look, we're doing a movie in LA. And um, the director, uh, isn't available. We shot part of it and they want to reshoot about half of it. Would you just take over as director? Uh, I, I had just had syndrome, which if you don't know what that is, yes. I got a flu shot and all of a sudden. Uh, I was a mess.

I was in pain. I had to go to the hospital. I was supposed to direct the pilot. I was, I had so much morphine in me. I said, yeah, I'll see you on Monday. Meanwhile, I was on morphine when I told them I was in the hospital. I don't want to tell him. And, uh, I, I knew I was in trouble when I sit in the hospital.

What is in this jello? What's wonderful. I knew I must've been on drugs.

Ted: [00:39:09] That's a terrible ailment. A friend of mine just went through that. He had to relearn how to walk.

Neal Israel: [00:39:14] Yeah. Yeah. I had to take physical therapy and everything. So, so two weeks after I got out of the hospital, Pat calls and said, can you take over it's scary movie five.

Oh yeah. And, uh, you know, it's, uh, Please, can you help? I said, sure. I said to my wife go to LA. She said you can't walk. What are you talking about? I was on all these pain meds. I said, are you kidding, Pat called, it's a feature I'm going to LA, I'm going to go do it.

Clip: [00:39:41] You're loyal, too..

Neal Israel: [00:39:43] Right? So I, I got, uh, uh, this, this kid who I had, who was my assistant. I said, look, you're going to come to LA with me. Here's all the pain meds. When I touch my nose, that means meet me in the bathroom because I've got to have pain meds. Oh, we used to do that with cocaine

Neal Israel: [00:40:03] only. Now it was, uh, If I got the horrible drugs, I would say I was taking all these horrible drugs. I was high the entire time I was doing that movement.

And I had, and by the way, it was a Weinstein movie, all the Weinstein. So it was Bob Weinstein behind me yelling. There should be more tits. Why aren't there tits? Can't you do some peeing. Let's put some painting in here at this going on. And David Zucker was the other, you know, writer producer with tad and I mean, it was a zoo. It was just a zoo.

Ted: [00:40:36] Well, it's interesting. You wanted to go into that a little bit where you got your start, which was in New York.

Neal Israel: [00:40:44] I got my degree is in theater and, um, when I first got out of school, I got a job as a record promoter don't I don't even know why. Oh my goodness.

And I drove around trying to get radio stations to play records. I did get a couple of shut things. I was very happy. I got into the New York market. I got Brown eyed girl. You know that? Sure. I got that on WIBC. That was a big thing. And then a angel in the morning. Oh no, no. Yeah, yeah. But I went to try and sign.

You had to sign clients to, for a show, uh, original cast album, this show. And I talked to the producer and within five minutes, I said, look, don't hire me for the record. Hire me to work on this show. This is what I want to do. And I got to be this famous director, George Abbott's assistant George Abbott.

Phil: [00:41:42] famous director!

Neal Israel:[00:41:43] the King of Broadway.

Phil: He directed until he was in his hundreds or something,

Neal Israel: [00:41:47] right. He died at 106 and I think he worked at 104 and he was in his eighties. Then he was amazing. Mr. Rabbit. Cause I got to hang out there and watch him and watch the work. And then I, there was somebody who was on that show, uh, as an observer was a playwright.

And, uh, he hired me to direct his play and on and on. And then I was directing in theater and all that. Great. My father was an actor and he was in theater and my parents it's met in the Broadway show. So all of it, all of it, it's sort of a full circle.

Phil:[00:42:15]You were born in a trunk. Yeah.

Neal Israel: [00:42:19] So that's why I'm, I want to do theater again, you know,

Ted: [00:42:23] Interesting, but you decided that you wanted to also make money and that's why you went West.

Neal Israel: [00:42:28] That was it because you'd be out of work. And even when you were working, I mean, you were lucky to get a place in the East village, you know, and share it with somebody that's about all you could afford. I said, this is not, this is not for me. Yup.

Ted: [00:42:42] I think we should touch a little bit more on the police Academy series. It was such a big success and there were seven of them.

Neal Israel: [00:42:50] Looking at where the movies were really successful. The more authoritarian the governments were or had been previously authoritarian, the more successful those movies were because, uh, you know, the more you have to deal with, um, cops who were coming down on you, uh, the more you can make fun of them.

Uh, I think that that's, that makes the movie even funnier. So, you know, places like all over Europe, Spain, uh, was a huge, um, it played very big in, in all the EU countries, really, when, when I think about it, uh, and also because it was physical humor, you didn't really have to get yeah. American style dialogue, right?

Ted: [00:43:41] That's uncommon that comedy can transcend cultures

Neal Israel: [00:43:44] Usually doesn't most American comedies do not do well.

Ted: [00:43:48] There are parallels between the Police Academy series and what the Zucker Brothers did to, you know, the Airplane series. Was that a friendly competition?

Neal Israel: [00:43:57] Well, I mean, so friendly that, that Pat did, uh, all the Naked Gun movies with them. Ah, we all sort of crossed over. No, it wasn't. I didn't ever feel in competition, although I never worked with, uh, uh, David Zucker until scary movie five. Mm. Which was just a six years ago, I think. Wow. But no, we were, uh, we were all doing the same thing. I remember going to see Kentucky fried theater on Pico.Maybe that's the first time I saw Pat. I thought it was the greatest, I mean, it was just hilarious,

Ted: [00:44:29] which is what became Kentucky fried movie.

Neal Israel: [00:44:31] That's right. John Landis, who did Kentucky fried movie. And I, we were all in the same group, John and I became friends. We were all doing the same kind of thing. It's very interesting how styles come and go. Things become passe. And then they come back.

Ted: [00:44:46] Neal, are you trying to get another, uh, police Academy off the ground?

Neal Israel: [00:44:50] Well, we're trying to get something where we reunite some of the actors and they were former detectives. Um, but it's not police Academy because we don't have police Academy.

So he can't do that, that right. We do have a lot of, uh, commitments from some of those actors, if we can launch the thing. I personally think that they should do police Academy again, but, uh, I guess, you know, um, key and Peele did a version of the script. Uh, of sequel. I'm going to say five, six years ago. Seven years ago maybe.And it never happened. They've done several scripts, but no, I didn't happen.

Phil: [00:45:29] Well, they, they, they defunded it.

Neal Israel: [00:45:31] Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's exactly right.

Ted: [00:45:37] Well, interesting now, given the scrutiny that police departments are under.

Neal Israel: [00:45:41] That should be part of the story. Yeah. It's like, it's like they don't they're underfunded. Nobody wants to be a cop. It's the same thing that who's, who are they going to take? Whoever the wants to come in, who wants to put up with that kind of abuse? And that the thing was the political satire was it's always been tough political satire. You know what it closes Saturday night. Right. I loved Veep because I thought Veep really, really did it.

Phil: [00:46:13] I agree. But if it was a feature. I don't, I don't know how that I, I always thought of it. And certainly with Firesign Theatre was, it was less political comedy than it was social satire, right. Social stature, you know, because the underpinnings of all politics, uh, is the way people feel about their, their relationship to their world, you know, and that's what we were always screwing around with.

Neal Israel: [00:46:35] I think Saturday night live, really gets, gets there. I don't think they go there really. It's it's. To a degree. I mean, they're doing political, some political sketches. They have, they always start with one, but I don't think they necessarily go into what you're talking about. It's really a satire of media a lot.

Phil: [00:46:53] Yeah. The, the commercial satires that they do those right there. I think the most pointed. Those are great. Yeah. There's a great doing sketch comedies, a little sketchier. It's a little harder. We're going to have to wrap this up. Uh, dear Neil, but we do have one last and vital question for you. In your biographical notes, which you sent to us, you have one line here, which is, I once spent a month in a sauna with Brad Pitt.

Neal Israel: [00:47:28] now you want to hear that story?

Ted: Oh yeah.

Phil: Yeah, sure.

Neal Israel: Okay. Brad Pitt was dating a woman and I was dating another woman. And they were both Scientologists. Oh, I guess they both convinced us what we needed to do was take this course, which if you're a, if you've taken any drugs, they say you need to sweat it out.

You need to take vitamins and sweat it out because the drugs stay in your bite. Well, of course I'd taken a lot of drugs. So I said, I would. Just so I could keep seeing this girl. Cause that was a thing so I go into the sauna and there he is. Same thing, same deal. So we were 30 days in the thing playing Monopoly. Those games went up. I mean, it was like six hours a day of monopoly thing, sweating, sweating on the board. Yeah. Here's a very competitive, I mean, every time I landed on one of his hotels, he was so excited. And I guess that's why he's a success.

Ted: [00:48:32] obviously we're in the, for the same reasons, but how did you land in the same sauna?

Neal Israel: [00:48:35] It was just happenstance. They signed both of us up. And it was, you know, it was for celebrities, quote, unquote, celebrity sauna.

Ted: [00:48:46] And they thought they'd sweat it out of you.

Neal Israel: [00:48:48] Well, I mean, I, I got wise, I realized there's no way they will know whether it's in or it's out. So one day I said, I think I'm clear. They said, okay, let's see. And they, they tested me and they said, yeah. Okay. They let me out. And Brad. As I recall, he didn't want to, one day he didn't want to go back. He said I've had it. I can't, I can't. So he didn't do the right thing and say, I'm done instead. He said, I'm not coming back. Oh. And I don't know how that, I don't know what happened after

Ted: [00:49:25] What year was this?

Neal Israel: 91. 92.

Ted: Wow. I was just across the street. LaPoubelle. Wonderful restaurant .

Phil: [00:49:29] LaPoubelle. I remember that.

Neal Israel: [00:49:30] Sure. I remember that place. Great place. What were you doing there?

Clip: [00:49:35] Eating?

Neal Israel: [00:49:38] Oh. Yeah, they had good food though at the Scientology place. A great dining room.

Phil: [00:49:43] Many of the scientologists are extremely creative people. Uh, Karen Black was a Scientologist too, you know, basically, you know, uh, it, it, it has to do with the fact that somebody finds something that works it's for them.

Neal Israel: [00:49:53]whatever, floats your boat more power to them. So when I say, nah, it's fine. I mean, you know, I, I was, I was done.

Phil: And what happened to your girlfriend?

Neal Israel: [00:50:07] That was way over. That point. It was too much. It was too many hoops. Yeah. Yeah. Too many things. Yeah.

Phil: [00:50:14] Hey, listen, once he got some of those drugs out of you, you looked at her and you went,

Neal Israel: [00:50:19] not so much, not so much, not so much,

Neal Israel: [00:50:24] actually it was into Brad's girl at that point. No, that’s not true.

Ted: [00:50:28] No, we sure do appreciate you coming on the show.

Neal Israel: [00:50:31] Absolutely. I've I've listened to the show. It's really fun. Thank you. Great fun. And just to be called a sexy boomers, sexy, anything.

Clip: [00:50:38] Yeah. Yeah,

Phil: [00:50:39] you are now officially a sexy boomer.

Neal Israel: [00:50:43] Do I get a t-shirt or a bumper sticker? I'll take it. And anything, anything that, that, that I can use for something I really want a t-shirt can you give a t-shirt that's a sexy boomer. Come on. That would be a great t-shirt. A t-shirt

Ted: [00:50:59] I think it's time to get into merch, Phil.

Phil: [00:51:00] I'll call Merch and see what he can do for us.

Ted: [00:51:04]Okay.

Neal Israel: [00:51:05] All right guys. A pleasure. Thank you, Ted.

Ted: [00:51:09] Thank you, Neil.

Phil: Wow, you don't Ted. I think this was one of our first books or shows where we really got into what it was like to be a boomer and how it, how it influenced our lives and our careers.

Ted: [00:51:24] His career arc reflected the times. So aptly that's right. Check out America thumb, because Phil, you wrote the movie with Peter Bergman. I mean, there was, there was a real Proctor and Bergman influence.

Phil: [00:51:35] Yeah. We wrote the movie up to a point and then we kind of lost control of it, which is typical of movies as Neil expresses in his comments, you know, uh, the spirit of the film was definitely from Proctor and Bergman. And, uh, and there it is up on the screen. It works. It's great. It's

Ted: [00:51:52] funny. It's getting closer and closer to when we will be able to get out of the bunker. Thanks to the vaccine.

Phil: [00:51:59] Anyway, there'll be more of this. If you can stand it,

Ted: [00:52:03] visit our website@sexyboomershow.com and you'll be able to hear a lots of episodes with really a fascinating group of guests. In your player, right now you can hit subscribe. So you will be alerted when new shows come up. And if you'd like you have an opportunity to send us a contribution to help this operation continue as we build our audience. And if you send $20 or more, we will send you a beautifully, sexy, sexy boomer. Bumper sticker.

Phil: [00:52:32] And that 20 bucks is going to go towards vaccinations for me and Ted and other good causes like that.

Ted: [00:52:39] Yeah. And the bumper sticker might just, if you get lucky right after the plague, of course.

Phil: [00:52:44] Yeah. And the accident.

Ted: [00:52:46] All right, Phil.

Phil: Bye for now.

Ted: See ya.

A.E. Guy: [00:52:51] You've been listening to Phil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show, featuring Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt and special guest Neal Israel. “Johnny Cash Barbecue” was written and performed by Patrick Weathers. Music by Eddie Baytos and the Nervis Brothers..

I'm A. Earnest Guy. Stay tuned for the next episode of iPhil and Ted’s Sexy Boomer Show. Produced by RadioPictures.com. The makers of fine podcasts or seasoned hipsters, man.